Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Sister Murakami, who referred Sister Mazuka, was raised in
an LDS family in Tokyo. But she became
less active when she was 11 years old because her family stopped attending
church. She stayed less active for more
than 15 years. When she had
difficulties, she remembered church and started to attend again. Then she went on a mission and served in the
United States, San Jose Mission.

She met Sister Mazuka at the university in Utsunomiya and
they became friends. Sister Mazuka had
lived in Hamamatsu since she was born. Sister
Murakami had lived there for college.
Sister Murakami forgot about church, so she didn’t talk with her friend
at all about church. But when she got
reactivated, she invited Sister Mazuka to church. But Sister Mazuka didn’t like church very
much at that time.

Sister Murakami referred Sister Mazuka to the Hamamatsu
elders, Elder Kobayashi and Elder Ito after she came back from her
mission. She knew that Sister Mazuka had
interest in the church because of difficulties she had experienced.

Sister Mazuka was golden and had strong desires to learn the
Gospel and know the truth. But she
struggled with knowing if there was a God.
Brother and Sister Ito tachiaied (went as members to help teach) every
time we had a lesson with her. They are
awesome tachiais. Brother Ito is a
convert. He told his conversion story to
Sister Mazuka and encouraged her to set a baptismal date as a goal to know the
truthfulness of the Gospel. She accepted
to be baptized on July 15th.
The missionaries taught her the Gospel with enthusiasm. But she was not sure that the Church was
true. So the baptismal date fell through. The Suzuki bishop also helped her a lot by
doing several things, such as giving her an assignment to play the piano at
Sacrament Meeting.

The Ito family invited her and the missionaries to
dinner. Then the Ito’s encouraged her
again to set a baptismal date when the missionaries invited her to be
baptized. She accepted more positively
than before. Her baptismal date was
August 12th.

Elder Ito is on far right. Elder Kobayashi is in white next to Sister Mazuka. Her friend, Sister Murakami, is in the gold top. The Ito family are on the left and Elder Hara is second from right..

Sister Mazuka got baptized on that day. Sister Murakami came to the baptismal service
from Tokyo. It was a great baptism. After the ordinance of baptism, Brother and
Sister Ito bore their testimony saying, “I am feeling the greatest joy of
missionary work. I didn’t serve a
mission but I know that missionary work brings the biggest happiness. And I also want to be a tool used by the Lord
to invite my friends and families to come unto Christ as Sister Murakami did to
Sister Mazuka.”

I saw a big change in the hearts of some members of the
church as President Eyring prophesied in 1998.
If more church members get willing to be involved in missionary work, we
can receive many blessings from heaven, having greater success in missionary
work. The baptism of Sister Mazuka is a
testimony of that.

About Me

Family Theme
We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men; indeed, we may say that we follow the admonition of Paul- We believe all things, we hope all things, and we have endured many things, and hope to endure all things. If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report of praiseworthy, we seek after these things. -13th Article of Faith